I wonder if it's possible to design an open source peer-2-peer mining pool.

Not controlled by a single entity server i.e. deepbit, slush, etc...

Maybe a virtual master pool entity to control the encrypted block the other users are mining against.The virtual p2p network distributes shares to miners.then distributes the coins after the block is mined.

Everyone is susceptible to ddos attacks. I think tho alot of the claims of this are simply pools that are growing too fast and arent tuned properly or dont have enough capacity. A server which has more users than it can handle especially with how bitcoind and pushpool work, would look and act just like a ddos attack.

But since i just started a pool up myself, i guess only time will prove me right or wrong